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Diane Smith

2006 Public Policy Summer Fellow

May 1, 2006

Graduate Degree: Harvard Graduate School of Education Undergraduate Degree: Kean University Areas of interest: Special needs education Agency: Boston Public Schools, Department of Unified Student Services Supervisor: Carolyn Riley, Senior Director of Unified Student ServicesProject Description: Diane Smith worked at the Boston Public School Department in the Unified Student Services Department under the direction of Carolyn Riley, Senior Director of Unified Student Services. The Unified Student Services Department focuses on creating a continuum of support for students with and without disabilities. The support focuses on mitigating barriers to teaching and learning, so that all students can reach citywide learning standards, graduate from high school, and have the tools to choose post-secondary education options and/or employment and contribute to the community. Her role over the summer was to analyze how Boston’s special education population performed on the 2006 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). She also identified trends of improvement in schools that have high poverty rates. By the end of this fellowship, she helped Boston’s USST analyze and interpret some of their voluminous MCAS data that pertains to special education and at the same time, gathered some statistical information for her dissertation research.